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Science Fiction: the latest must-reads

Robert Charles Wilson’s latest describes a social network that has evolved into something even more invasive and threatening than Facebook and Google.

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The premise is that the new science of social teleodynamics has come up with complex algorithms that sort humanity into “socionomic affinities.” These proto-ethnicities have, in turn, stepped in to provide a sense of security, belonging and identity in a secular, post-nationalist world that has also turned its back on the dysfunctional train wreck of genetic kinship and family.

Of course, things don’t work out quite as planned. Intra-affiliation competition is as much a product of the new world order as co-operation, and high-tech social bonding turns out to be no match for old-fashioned tribal hatred of the other.

As always, Wilson has grounded his speculations in a suspenseful story focused on real people coping with these changes. It’s a troubling vision of the future, made all the more so by the ambiguity at its heart: are the affinities a good thing? Is this progress, or regression to a more primitive state?

The Machine Awakes

By Adam Christopher

(Tor, $29.99, 352 pages)

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The Machine Awakes is the second instalment in Adam Christopher’s Spider Wars trilogy, telling a stand-alone story set in the same universe as last year’s TheBurning Dark.

As things begin it seems something’s stirring on the moons of Jupiter, and it’s not those pesky Spiders again. Meanwhile, things aren’t going well on Earth either, as the Fleet Admiral has just been assassinated after being overthrown in a coup. But which of the many conspiracies out there is responsible?

It’s up to the Fleet Bureau of Investigation to get to the bottom of all this, and Special Agent Von Kodiak is the man for the job. Expect a really entertaining space opera with all the fixings from a young writer who is hitting his stride.

The Mechanical

By Ian Tregillis

(Orbit, $19.00, 471 pages)

A lot of the success of an SF series depends on the author’s skill at world building. How interesting and fully developed is their vision of an alternative reality?

Ian Tregillis passes this test with flying colours in The Mechanical, which is billed as Book One of The Alchemy Wars. The setting is a twentieth century that looks very unlike the one we just survived. It seems the brain trust of the Dutch Enlightenment (think names such as Christiaan Huygens) created a race of mechanical golems in the seventeenth century that have made the Dutch Empire into a global powerhouse. This places them in conflict with the French, whose King (they still have one of those) has been driven into exile in North America.

What follows is an international thriller with a crowded cast of spies, alchemists, theologians and “Clakkers.” It’s a great launch to the series and one that fans of speculative fiction, steampunk and fantasy will definitely want to get on board for.

Old Venus

Ed. By George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

(Bantam, $35.00, 382 pages)

Old Venus is the followup to Old Mars, a terrific collection that came out last year full of stories set on the Red Planet. This time we’re off to visit our other next-door neighbour, with results that are just as thrilling and surprising.

What Martin and Dozois mean by “old” Venus is a mythic version of the second rock from the Sun that was current in the early part of the twentieth century, and which inspired a lot of Golden Age SF of the type dubbed “Planetary Romance.”

The stories here are very much in that same vein, set on a fantasy Venus that turns out to be a hot, humid environment where the rain never lets up and whose surface is all sea and swamp. Among the other exotic flora and fauna, the native Venusians tend to be froggy creatures who find themselves in ambiguous relations with the human colonists.

It’s hard to generalize though, as this is a wonderfully varied collection that goes from horror to comedy, political neo-noir to classic adventure. One hopes the editors will continue to explore the (old) solar system.

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